Before anyone asks, this won’t consist of an action plan of placing myself in a forest in Australia among the reptiles and creepy crawlies to overcome my fear of …creatures!

This is going to be a two part series on two life related ‘fears’ that I have and that I feel are holding me back in life which I really want to work on overcoming.

Right at this very moment as I am writing this, it all feels a tad silly, but I know I need to force myself to do this for my personal growth and who knows – maybe I’m not the only one who has this …

So, today I’m going to talk about my fear of (anxiety when it comes to) networking and attending social events on my own. Now I’m sure it’s natural to feel nervous when going alone, but I’ve started to realise that I’m not attending events such as meet and greets, talks and socials that I have genuinely wanted to go to purely down to the fact that I’d be going alone and I just find myself sitting at home instead.

My 2017 New Years resolution was actually to attend some events and start to surround myself with more like minded individuals…but we’re now almost in August…and I haven’t moved forward, nothing has changed!

Now obviously a very simple solution to this would be to ask a friend along, but I don’t have an abundance of friends with very similar interests to me and I also don’t want to become totally dependent on other people to do things that I should be able to do myself…if that makes any sense?

The funny thing about all this is that I am actually be really talkative , socialable person among my own close social circle and in familiar social situations, but it’s once I’m placed in a room full of strangers that puts me at a total loss!

When it comes to attending events on my own my thought process tends to consist of the following:

… what if nobody talks to me or I get too nervous to approach other people … or what if I do and it ends up being really awkward small talk (I HATE small talk) … what do I do if I’m standing on my own in a room full of people … like I genuinely don’t know what to do with myself …how to place my arms, how to stand, where the hell to look…cue antisocial phone behavior! CRINGE

Sounds a total mess right?

Anyone think I’m crazy yet?

But who knows – maybe I’ll attend some events on my own and realise that it’s actually absolutely fine and this was all just unnecessary anxiety…or it’ll be a struggle but I’ll get there eventually.

Either way I’m sure this will be a real learning experience for me and hopefully I’ll be able to come up with some tips and tricks for anyone else who finds it difficult attending events and networking on their own.

I have a similar anxiety about this topic (Australian outback and creepy crawlies included). I haven’t had the opportunity to network at a large scale event just yet and while I look forward to it, I’m still quite nervous. The idea of going by yourself can seem so daunting. I’m sure you will do great. Who knows? Maybe you will find some fellow bloggers at these events when doing the small talk. 🙂

I’m definitely going to start off small and work my way up 🙂 Even the thought makes me slightly nervous but networking is such as important skill to have in so many aspects of life! We’ll get there eventually, it’s all about building the courage to step way outside of our comfort zones 🙂 Good Luck x